Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Build a Dock on Ice?

Update on ice dock; Layout and post setting went mostly as planned. I ended up moving the dock location at the last minute and found the water depth to be quite a bit shallower than the previous location. Layout was super easy. I drilled holes to set stakes. Using upside down marking paint on the ice worked excellent. Even better than marking on grass or dirt. String lines were ran and everything was squared up. I marked out hole locations and angered 10" holes for the 6x6 posts. I pointed each post to aid in driving them down. The points proved helpful in stabbing the posts in the proper locations but hand driving them from a ladder was quite tedious and I had to give up before getting any to acceptable depth. I locked everything together until I could come up with a new plan for sinking them. Ice conditions haven't been the best. We've been getting these huge temperature swings from well below freezing to nearly 50 in the sun. We are now past peak ice so I am going to be hustling to get post down and at the very least get headers attached. Being we had warm weather, I refocused efforts on getting our excavator running. I think it should be super easy to drive down the posts just by pushing them down with the excavator bucket. Also, if my ice thaws before building the platforms, I think I will just build on shore then swing them in place using the excavator too. Should be fun!